TY - JOUR

T1 - Ethnic identities are low social status identities

AU - Nørreby, Thomas Rørbeck

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - In this article, I investigate the interactional use of the linguistic labels “araber” and “perker” among a group of Copenhagen schoolchildren. Both labels are well-known to the Danish public and predominantly they are associated with ethno-cultural heritage. The interactional examples indicate an interesting common understanding of the two labels and their indexicalities (Ochs, 1992, Silverstein, 2003) among the group of children in focus. Within this understanding, the indexical element pointing to ethno-cultural relations does not seem to play a prominent role; instead the use invokes mainly associations to age, school orientation and transgressive and ill-advised (social and linguistic) behavior. In my discussion, I therefore suggest that the indexical re-configurations might be reflecting a wider societal tendency similar to what Madsen (2013) has argued in relation to ways of speaking. What I suggest is that the tendency in Danish public discourse to treat non-Danish ethnicities as uniquely tied to being socially and educationally inept means that certain labels, which designate these identities, are becoming emblems of a (new) societal low. The study thereby illustrates how situated language use among urban schoolchildren invoke aspects of social stratification and institutional inequality and supports the growing awareness that systematic inequalities remain even though we may talk about them in different ways than we used to (Rampton, 2006, Rampton, 2010, Rampton, 2011, Jaspers, 2011, Madsen, 2013, Madsen et al., 2016).

AB - In this article, I investigate the interactional use of the linguistic labels “araber” and “perker” among a group of Copenhagen schoolchildren. Both labels are well-known to the Danish public and predominantly they are associated with ethno-cultural heritage. The interactional examples indicate an interesting common understanding of the two labels and their indexicalities (Ochs, 1992, Silverstein, 2003) among the group of children in focus. Within this understanding, the indexical element pointing to ethno-cultural relations does not seem to play a prominent role; instead the use invokes mainly associations to age, school orientation and transgressive and ill-advised (social and linguistic) behavior. In my discussion, I therefore suggest that the indexical re-configurations might be reflecting a wider societal tendency similar to what Madsen (2013) has argued in relation to ways of speaking. What I suggest is that the tendency in Danish public discourse to treat non-Danish ethnicities as uniquely tied to being socially and educationally inept means that certain labels, which designate these identities, are becoming emblems of a (new) societal low. The study thereby illustrates how situated language use among urban schoolchildren invoke aspects of social stratification and institutional inequality and supports the growing awareness that systematic inequalities remain even though we may talk about them in different ways than we used to (Rampton, 2006, Rampton, 2010, Rampton, 2011, Jaspers, 2011, Madsen, 2013, Madsen et al., 2016).

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Identitet

KW - Sproglig etnografi

KW - Social stratifikation

KW - Uddannelse

KW - Etnicitet

U2 - 10.1016/j.pragma.2018.11.018

DO - 10.1016/j.pragma.2018.11.018

M3 - Journal article

VL - 140

SP - 127

EP - 139

JO - Journal of Pragmatics

JF - Journal of Pragmatics

SN - 0378-2166

M1 - 10

ER -